I Can Has Funding: Cheezburger Raises $30M

http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/17/i-can-has-funding-cheezburger-raises-30m-for-lolcats-fail-blog-and-other-memes/

by ssclafani • 16 years ago

44 44 16 years ago

techcrunch.com

robotys• 16 years ago

And what will they do with the money? hire more lolcats?

gcb2• 16 years ago

maybe some cheeseburgers

davidmurphy• 16 years ago

Import In-n-Out shipments to Seattle daily?

wiradikusuma• 16 years ago

I love your country

rhizome2• 16 years ago

Saturday morning cartoon.

rhizome2• 16 years ago

I don't usually complain about downvotes, but this time? They're going to have to expand horizontally to get past hot-or-not vitality, though I suppose they could just be planning growth based on discovering more cute-able animals.

Andrenid• 16 years ago

Hate to be another "Bubble" preacher, but if this isn't another step in that direction, I don't know what is.

hugh35• 16 years ago

Well, there's two ways to look at this. Are we buying Cheezburger Network because of its existing collection of fad-sites, or are we buying it because we think they have the capacity to keep coming up with new fad-meme-sites indefinitely?

latch3• 16 years ago

Bubble? Don't know. I bet they attract very distinct (relative to most websites) and important segments. If I took at stab at it I'd say something like non-tech white employed females.

If they do have unique and/or focused segments, and enough of them, they can monetize it.

sidek• 16 years ago

Failblog is popular with some high school students.

latch3• 16 years ago

Ya, I wasn't thinking Failblog was popular amongst the employed-female crowd. Different property, different segment. As long as you have and can identify a specific audience, you're in good shape. It'd be interesting to get a breakdown lolcat's audience...maybe i'm wrong and it's a broad group which doesn't differentiate itself from a lot of web properties (male geeks).

JacobAldridge• 16 years ago

Yeah, for what it's worth I tend to check out a few of their properties most days. I stopped with the lolcats when the ironic crowd were overrun with the 'oh-it's-a-cute-kittie' crowd, but I still check out Fail Blog, Ugliest Tattoos, and Failbook. I think you're right that focused segments is the key to the growth and success so far.

http://failblog.org/ http://ugliesttattoos.com/ http://failbook.com/

reynolds• 16 years ago

There are a lot of reasons to believe we're in another startup bubble, but at least Cheezburger is profitable.

plnewman• 16 years ago

I've never looked at this site before today. What's the point of it?

shankx• 16 years ago

Do cats get a share of that funding?

mahmud4• 16 years ago

That, my friends, is why I wash my hands of this industry.

So much for "smart people doing what they love" eh?

Better get that government job and hunker down; once this pops, your mad skillz might never see use again.

For those lacking historical context; it took 20 years for anyone to be hired in industry to work in "artificial intelligence".

snprbob86• 16 years ago

Having met several people who work at Cheezburger, I can verify that they are indeed very smart people doing what they love. The Cheezburger team works tirelessly to make sure that their users laugh, every day. That's their mission and they seem to be achieving it...

mahmud4• 16 years ago

Smart people, maybe, but they sure as hell don't need to be working hard to keep ICHCB running.

As far as technologies that inspire go, there are very, VERY few around.

ryanwaggoner2• 16 years ago

How the hell can you all be bitching about how this is a bubble? Were any of you around for the dot com days? I was young, but I remember companies getting triple and quadruple digit P/E ratios, for the lucky ones that had earnings at all. Others went public and were worth hundreds of millions or billions before they had so much as a decent audience, let alone a revenue model. Now we're crying "bubble" because a profitable company with a huge (profitable) audience raised money to grow even more profitable? You think their subject is stupid, I get it. You probably don't watch cheap, cookie-cutter cartoons or read trashy romance novels, but there are huge markets for those, too.

If growing, profitable companies in large markets raising capital means a bubble, may it grow ever more bubbly.

latch3• 16 years ago

I did an internship at a place in 99...I never saw a product or a client..but I saw fancy offices and foosball tables. It set certain ..ahh...unrealistic expectations.

brc• 16 years ago

That must have sucked going into a downhill ride in both work and office expectations. I imagine within three years you were working in some crappy location jammed with developers.

I was lucky. I started work in a major recession after 12 months of searching. Every year was an improvement in both salary, conditions and offices. By the time the bubble came and went I'd seen it all anyway.

Still, good times. I remember having a golf putter beside my desk and engaging in golf competitions with senior management. And my coworkers writing cool multiplayer games instead of actually, you know, writing code that paid bills. Oh there was deadlines and projects and stuff like that.

Another one of my friends was having visa troubles, and had to produce evidence of employment. All he had was a couple of employement documents on a letterhead of a company that didn't exist anymore, and the domain name went to some crazy domain parking company. The INS people were skeptical to say the least when he tried to explain what they did.

hugh35• 16 years ago

I'd want to know the price/earnings and the valuation before I started crying bubble.

I am somewhat concerned about the long-term sustainability of the audience for these properties. Will people still be interested in lolcats ten years from now? Almost certainly not, but the question is whether the Cheezburger Network can continue to stay on the bleeding edge of whatever zany memes folks might happen to be interested in in the future.

cabalamat• 16 years ago

> Will people still be interested in lolcats ten years from now? Almost certainly not

I disagree. The fundamental reason why lolcats are interesting is that people find cats cute. Cats are a superstimulus that hooks into the human instinct to look after our young. Since human psychology isn't going to change in the next 10 years, lolcats will still be popular.

danilocampos• 16 years ago

> Will people still be interested in lolcats ten years from now?

It's a fair point. Another questionable investment: Those guys with the Apple II. Who is going to be interested in having an Apple II ten years hence? The guys peddling DOS are some scam artists, too.

If only smart people could shift their business from one success into another, leveraging their talent, assets and experience in the process...

(And before the pedants jump in: of course ICHC isn't anywhere close to the same level of impact.)

revorad3• 16 years ago

I honestly don't mind the curious reactions of people. I think it's helpful to know what we felt at the time of the posting and to see people's reaction changing as answers are revealed. If I can't laugh at us, who will?

- Ben Huh, Cheezburger, Inc. Founder and CEO

http://www.quora.com/What-were-the-VCs-thinking-in-investing...

cageface• 16 years ago

If growing, profitable companies in large markets raising capital means a bubble, may it grow ever more bubbly.

Two things: 1. Some people will profit in a bubble. 2. That things aren't as stupid as 1999 doesn't mean this isn't one.

jcfrei• 16 years ago

A simple question remains: what are they going to do with 30 mil $? If the site is profitable already, and the business model won't change significantly then the only space for growth is yet another meme niche site ( which they have been doing in the past). Anyway I think their potential for growth is limited and the 30 mil valuation doesnt reflect the potential earnings - bubble or not.

revorad3• 16 years ago

Any ideas on how much revenue/profit they make?

redthrowaway2• 16 years ago

Quite a bit. Ben Huh is worth many millions, and that's from merchandizing and advertising, not raising capital. It's a very profitable business, considering it's just 3 year old 4chan memes, and a bunch of newer ones that are nowhere near funny.

revorad3• 16 years ago

Any numbers or sources?

steveplace• 16 years ago

Just like facebook, twitter, zynga, and groupon... The fact that this news pisses off HN commenters leads me to believe that they will be fairly successful.

I Can Has Funding: Cheezburger Raises $30M

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